Dr. Saturday

Goodbye Mon-TAY Ball, hello Mon-TEE Ball

Wisconsin coaches are done with Mon-TAY Ball. From here on out, the running back formerly known as Mon-TAY Ball will now be known as Mon-TEE Ball.

Adjust your rosters accordingly.

"The coaches have been calling me Mon-TEE now," Ball told Fox Sports Wisconsin. "They said, 'Mon-TAY is done with. We don't want to see him anymore and it's back to Mon-TEE.' I'm just going with it now."

Prior to the season, the school announced that Ball, a former Heisman Trophy finalist, was going by Mon-TAY instead of Mon-TEE, which is what everyone called him a year ago. But Mon-TAY has looked like anything but a Heisman candidate, rushing for 569 yards and eight touchdowns. Mon-TAY also was beaten up and hospitalized while walking home in August, and suffered a concussion early in the season.

But since coaches started using Mon-TEE, the running back had found his former self. In the past two games against Purdue and Minnesota, Ball has rushed for 413 yards and five touchdowns. All of a sudden we're seeing the same Mon-TEE who led the country with 1,923 rushing yards and tied the single-season FBS record with 39 total touchdowns a year ago.

"I didn't want to go public with that one," Wisconsin coach Brett Bielema said. "I was riding back on the plane from Purdue [last week], and a couple of my coaches told me that everybody on the sideline was saying, 'Hey, Mon-TAY's gone, but Mon-TEE's back.'

"You really see him starting to get some of those signature broken tackles that you've seen him do where he sidesteps a guy or runs through a guy. He popped a guy pretty good on Saturday where he lowered his shoulder. You could see some of that nastiness come back."

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